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Silvery barbs is not a very powerful spell. It is slightly above as far as 2014 spells go. It is nowhere near the powerhouse spells of 2024 (Command and Tasha's Hideous Laughter). The biggest problem with Silvery Barbs is it slows down the game tremendously.

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I do not see this as a big deal as it uses both more actions and more spell slots and the benefits are only marginally better, it is situationally really powerful - like you want to Fireball a Dragon from a mile away, but generally I don't see this as being a big deal IMO. Maybe I am missing...

In terms of DPR it is ok, it is not great because you need to give up your action to let your familiar attack. You can't use Bardic Inspiration on yourself, but yes it is still ok damage. You are not keeping up with a Fighter or Paladin though or generally a single class Valor Bard or Bladelock.

I have not seen anyone try to regularly spam this yet, despite multiple games played through level 20 using 2024 rules, so I can't speak from experience on it. I have seen it tried a couple times and it was not very effective those couple of times. Once the enemy died before the caster's...

#3 does not scale well vs a fighter into tier 4 in terms of damage, in part because of the action to cast it and in part because of the weakness of the summoned allies and concentration requirement. I don't think #4 will scale well either, although I have not seen this used as often...

Well that is an interpretation, although I am not sure many tables will allow it. That said, why have the background tied to mechanics at all then? If I can play an Acolyte with +1 Wisdom, +2 Dexterity and the Tavern Brawler feat then why even have a sailor with those printed feats and ASIs...

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It is not a houserule it is in the PHB* If WOTC modeled their new backgrounds around the rules they published telling you how to use older backgrounds there would be no issue. *Technically the 50gp option is a houserule, but everything else isn't.

I think it is and I have played with dozens of groups from many countries. I think high fantasy and high magic is the norm for D&D. Official WOTC adventures represent about 50% of games I would say they are mostly high fantasy and high magic as are most 3rd party adventures. Low magic games...

There are specific mechanics associated with the words. You can hombrew this, but if you are playing RAW when you make the command they do what it says in the spell. Approach. The target moves toward you by the shortest and most direct route, ending its turn if it moves within 5 feet of you...

It is super meaningful. I would notice as soon as I put my character together. The Origin Feat is not that great. Looking at it alone compared to other Origin Feats it is probably slightly below average in a combat-oriented game or well below average in a balanced game. I will notice it...

Exactly. The feat given by the background is objectively weaker because of this, and her we are not talking about a class, where you can choose a different one, but a feat that is tied directly to the background. Morover though, while you fail once "more" out of 20 attepmts, your overall...

When you are talking about mechanics this means a 2 point decrease in your primary ability and the loss of a feat that synergizes with your class abilities and replacement with a Feat that is of little value for your class. Constitution is not nearly as important as Dexterity for numerous...

They do say this explicitly for ability score increases though, on page 38 of the 2024 PHB: "If you’re using a species from an older book, ignore those increases and use only the ones given by your background."

Well yeah it bleeds over, it is a high fantasy, high magic game, but I think that is representative of most modern D&D games. Only one of the games I am playing right now is of the low magic variety. That is a Darksun game with a lot of house rules, but we are moving back to Forgotten Realms...

It is not only the best, but you are penalized for taking something more thematic like Sage or Acolyte.

It is a chained feat. The reason to get the origin feat is to follow it with the 4th level Dragonscarred feat and that feat is a huge increase in offense (with the accompanying high wisdom)

They are spells, I don't think they should be easily defended. That is the whole point IMO. We do what is most fun at my tables. To be clear the tables I am a player on have not changed back to the old Mage Slayer or Indomitable (although we have talked about doing it with Indomitable), that...